


Love hurts

by Mousekins



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings, Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Clausten is main ship here, M/M, Ninten sucks at getting hints and Lucas tries to help him out, angst to an extent, mentions of Nesscas more than actual Nesscas, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 02:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18326942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousekins/pseuds/Mousekins
Summary: Ninten doesn't get along with Claus very well, and Ninten is determined to fix that.





	Love hurts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [megastarstrike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/megastarstrike/gifts).



> Megastarstrike wrote me a Clausten fic so here I am, gifting them one too because they enable my bad writing habits as much as I enable theirs. Their fic is "Ninten's guide on how to handle feelings" and it's beautiful.
> 
> Violence happens a little near the end.

Some days there’s fire in Claus’ eyes that Ninten can’t help but prod at. It crackles and flickers and Ninten shouldn’t be surprised when his shirts have little burns at their collars. He shouldn’t be surprised when venom spits from the ginger’s tongue, when he flushes in rage and hurls a bolt of lightning in his general direction-- it’s easy to shield against it. Claus would never legitimately harm him, and Ninten knows this as fact. It’s what made their interactions so easy, so predictable, and the half-hearted glare and the little smirk Claus would shoot his way would fill his chest with warmth.  
  
Other days the embers would die down, leaving little trickles of warmth in the inferno’s wake and it was easier to get a little closer. Claus’ eyes would stare far off into the distance, tracing invisible patterns as he reminisced within his mind. The tips of soft scars rest low on Claus’ jaw, branching out into their own little trees and thickening as they run down his torso. Ninten’s fairly certain there’s only two people in this whole world that have seen those scars, Lucas and himself. Ninten found an ethereal beauty to them that he could never express out loud.

Whenever he spoke to Lucas about them there were ebbings of regret lacing his words. He didn’t want Claus to have done that, he didn’t want the timelines to meld together like this, but if it hadn’t happened maybe he wouldn’t have Ness. Ninten can only smile at him and thank him for everything he’s done, because without Lucas he never would have met Claus. The sentiment seems to cheer Lucas up a little- for somebody so bright he sure looked far too solemn.

Without Lucas there’d be no scars, but those scars are what makes Claus- well, Claus. The sun would kiss at their skin and Claus, being a ginger, would get the worst of it. The burns would highlight the whites of healed skin and freckles, and Claus would cover them with his hands, pretending like they weren’t there. Ninten didn’t like it when Claus got self-conscious like that, a fiery boy like him deserves all the confidence in the world.

Claus didn’t cry without good reasons to, he saw it as a form of weakness. He hadn’t cried when he had temporarily died in his brother’s arms, he hadn’t cried when his mother had died, and he hadn’t cried when the drills and shocks in his system had woken him up mindless and with a drifting consciousness. Ninten thought that was bullshit and that Claus should cry if he wanted to cry, being able to cry was a sign that he could still feel things, that he was passionate about something.

He remembers Claus brushing off his comments, and he remembers being angry at Claus for that.

Ness mentions to him that Lucas wasn’t afraid to cry around him, he wouldn’t do it often but when he did he would sob with his whole heart. It would tighten around his chest and his empath powers would go haywire for a while, but it was worth the suffocating feeling if it meant he could share Lucas’ pain in the moment. Ninten wonders with a softening expression if maybe Claus just didn’t want to cry around him, as opposed to not crying at all. Ness couldn’t tell him.

Lucas had smiled at him warmly and shook his head. “Claus doesn’t cry,” he’d said, his eyes averting upwards to the pinkening clouds within the sky. After a moment of careful consideration, Lucas’ tongue licking briefly at his bottom lip in pensive thought- a habit both twins possessed- “At least not outwardly.”

It had made him think while he scrubbed out the ash on his favourite shirt, and he wonders just how Ness and Lucas had done it. They were near opposites in every way- they shouldn’t have worked as well as they did, Lucas needed space and Ness needed touch. They were mother’s boys to a fault, but one was too sensitive and the other was insensitive. Ninten can’t figure out where they’d balance out.

He can’t figure out where they land on the scale and which one of them was making it imbalanced. He’d tried everything (and he means _everything_ ), but Claus just seemed pissed off at him no matter what he did. So he kept doing what he does best, pissing Claus off for the sake of getting him to retaliate, and then allowing the quiet moments after for Claus to sink off into retrospection.

It was embarrassing to admit just how long it had taken Ninten to realise that’s exactly what Claus needed. Claus needed a vent, a way to get out the emotions locked up inside of his chest, he needed a punching bag- somebody he could toss lightning at and spar with until he was exhausted and at peace with himself. Ninten’s chest tightens with hope.

If that’s what he needed.

So Ninten approaches Claus with a wide smile and mischief flickering in dark irises, Claus’ greens clashing with near-black, and just as he’s about to chide Claus for greeting a friend with such animosity. Claus tells him to save it and leaves. Just when he thought he’d figured it out Claus throws a curveball in his direction, and he’s forced to let it strike. He wouldn’t lie; he wants to chase after him, to ask him what’s up and why he’s going to ditch him like that, but the tone had made his intentions extremely clear.

Don’t you fucking dare.

Maybe he didn’t need that at all, and it was getting harder for Ninten to tell what Claus wanted of him. _He wants you to leave him alone_ . That may be right, voice in his head, but he doesn’t want to just let Claus sit and suffe--- wait, that wasn’t his inside voice. His eyes dart to link with Lucas’, a frown on his face and his eyebrows knitted together in mild disapproval. Ninten didn’t want to leave Claus alone like that, Claus didn’t deserve to be alone like that.

He follows after him anyway.

There’s a moment of silence when he catches up to the ginger, his heart pounding in his head with nerves and a sense of unwarranted urgency. He’s thankful for his inhaler in his cargo pocket, but he sincerely hopes he doesn’t have to use it today. If he’s careful enough in his approach then Claus won’t run away from him, and with a few more strands of luck maybe he wouldn’t get attacked, either. Claus knows he has asthma and while Ninten is positive that the ginger won’t abuse this fact, he could never be too certain. People often didn’t think straight when they were angry, and Ninten’s asthma was one of those unfortunate facts people forgot.

When he gets too close, Claus reacted far more violently than normal. His Psionic energy seemed to prickle up the hairs on the back of his neck, and before Ninten could ask him what was wrong, a bolt of PK Thunder was launched directly at him. Time seemed to slow down in his mind, this bolt was brighter, it had more charge in it. He brings up a shield but it’s too hasty, he still gets hit with power of the bolt, and while it doesn’t pulse through him like electricity usually would, it does knock him back a considerable distance. If he wasn’t worried for his life he may have been impressed.

He grits his teeth- he doesn’t want to fight him. Claus yells out at him, calls him tone-deaf, asks him why he’d followed him here, damn-near growls at him and Ninten’s heart nearly stops in his chest. It’s too late for maybe’s and what-if’s, he needed to calm Claus down before he seriously hurt himself. That much Psionic power being used in one go would genuinely damage something, it would make Claus become exhausted.

It could _kill_ him.

“I wanted to know that you were alright-” He can barely get out half of his sentence before another bolt shoots his way, he pushes up another shield that cracks easily under the force of the energy. Claus approaches, his eyes lighting up as the psionic lightning crackles between his fingers. Ninten curses himself for not knowing any offensive PSI, and makes a note to ask literally anyone else to teach him how to use something. Ironically, to protect himself he needed to uphold an offence. He’s hoping that his defensive powers are enough.

“Well now you know.” Claus practically spits at him, and he doesn’t have enough time to move as a bolt scorches the ground next to him, and he lacks the time to react as a fist collides with his jaw. No amount of shielding could protect him from a physical hit- psionic shields were meant to block mental attacks. A leg is brought down onto his back and he feels himself collapse against the floor, air struggling to get into his lungs as copper fills his mouth. “Are you satisfied now, Ninten?” His body is rolled onto its side, and through blurry vision and shock, he can see Claus’ eyes widen.

 _Horror_ .

Ninten allows a laugh to bubble from his chest; humorless and pained. Maybe the ginger finally realised what he’d done, maybe the consequences of lashing out without thinking would finally connect with his dumb, stupid, _beautiful_ head. “Y-Yeah,” he gasps, “fig-ured as much…”  The last thing he sees is Claus leaning in and shouting his name.

He awakens to the familiar feeling of PK Lifeup, it tingles gently through his system and soft fingers work the area around his back and sides. He notes that he can still taste blood in his mouth, and for a moment he wonders where he is and how he got into this mess- ah, Lucas had warned him, hadn’t he? _Yes, I did, and you still ran off after him._

“You’re finally awake, thank God.” Lucas’ worried voice chimes in, a total juxtapose from his telepathy. Ninten can’t be too mad at Lucas’ annoyance and his concern, he _had_ run off after being told not to, the whole reason his rib was presumably broken- because how else was he meant to explain the deep, burning pain in his sternum?- was because he was dumb enough to think Claus needed somebody.

Great deductions there, Sherlock.

“Ninten!” A hand is pressed on his shoulder and Lucas half-glares at the person in question. There’s no animosity behind it, more of the glare a mother gives to a child who had been disobeying house rules, and she was sick of their shit. Claus didn’t seem to mind the half-glare, far too concerned over him to worry about his brother’s problems.

Ninten inhales, shakily. “I guess, you want to know if I’m alright, huh?” he says it as more of a joke, but the hurt that flashes in Claus’ suddenly averted eyes hits him a little too deeply. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Ninten squeezes the ginger’s hand in his own and smiles at him, there’s still blood slightly dribbling from his mouth, it’s all he’s been able to smell for the past five minutes of his conscious thought.

Claus, then, performs the unthinkable. He leans in close, nudging their cheeks together and inhaling sharply.

Ninten feels something wet against his face- and before he can yell how gross Claus is for drooling on him, he hears the soft sniffles, a gentle whimper, and his body is pulled closer to the other. Claus was crying. Ninten didn’t know how to react, and given how Lucas was healing him, he _couldn’t_ react. So Ninten does what he can.

“Claus don’t I’m not worth--” Claus mumbles for him to _shut up_ , and he does.

“Could’ve killed you and this is h-ow you wake up? With forgiveness ready? What are you, a masochist?” Claus’ words had no bite to them, he’s grateful that Ninten’s come back, he’s happy that Ninten is awake, he’s clinging onto him with such intensity that Ninten understands. He may be dense but he’s not _that_ dumb. “I’m so sorry, Ninten.” His voice is weak and shaky, quaking under the force of his own words, breaths partially laboured as he sobs between Ninten’s neck and shoulder.

He shrugs so Claus will look at him, puffy eyed and wobbly lipped, and he turns himself enough to tug Claus down to his lips. Claus tenses as their mouths connect and Ninten chuckles softly as the sniffling stops. “Not a masochist; I just love you.” He may be as dumb as a sack of bricks, but he knows how he feels. He knows that his need to please wasn’t just because he wanted to be closer as friends, he knows that he’d be just fine being a punching bag.

Claus smiles wide for the first time in months, tears rolling down his cheeks as Lucas smirks at them.

_He loves you too, Ninten._

_But did you really have to do that in front of me? You’re worse than Ness._

He shoots a look at Lucas, knowing that he probably shouldn’t kick the one healing his wounds, even if he really wanted to.


End file.
